Vietnamese Beef And Lettuce Curry

16 Reviews

Prep: 15 min
Cook: 45 min
Ready In: 1 hr

“A delicious mild curry to serve with steamed or boiled rice that's relatively simple to prepare. The use of lettuce in cooked meals is also an interesting novelty for Western tastes used to having it only in salads and buffet dishes.” - by WOBBLY

Directions

In a pot, bring the rice and water to a boil. Reduce heat to low, cover, and simmer 25 minutes.
In a bowl, mash together the sugar and 1 clove garlic with a pestle. Mix in the fish sauce, water, chile sauce, and lemon juice.
Heat the oil in a wok over high heat, and quickly saute the 3 cloves garlic. Mix the beef into the wok, season with cumin, and cook until evenly brown. Pour in the tomatoes and about 1/2 the fish sauce mixture. Reduce heat to low, and simmer 20 minutes, until thickened.
Toss the lettuce into the beef mixture. Serve at once over the cooked rice with the remaining fish sauce mixture on the side.

Reviews (16)

Rate This Recipe

Holly Berry

Jan. 4, 2008

"I used chow mein noodles instead of rice, ¼ cup canned diced tomato/chile and a mixture inspired by these 3 recipes: Basic Curry Sauce, Chinese Style Sesame Sauce & Teriyaki Sauce and Marinade. I used..." See more peanut oil, ginger, garlic, turmeric, curry powder, chile sauce, cilantro, white sugar, cornstarch, rice vinegar, soy sauce, peanut sauce, lemon juice and water. Just keep tasting and adding stuff until you like it. Lots of cornstarch added a bit at a time helps thicken the sauce without affecting taste. While I had the sauce going, I cooked the ground beef in a separate pan then drained it and added to the sauce and continued simmering. Ground beef grease is nasty so I wasn't about to cook the raw beef in the sauce. I let the food cool for a minute to thicken, added romaine lettuce and sprinkled on sesame seeds for texture. Overall, this recipe was good. The cooking times are correct to get good results. I used chow mein noodles because I’m tired of rice and they take literally 1 minute to cook. I tried this recipe because I needed to use up my ground beef, but something like this should be made with thinly sliced steak or pork."

GUAYAQUILHOOK

Dec. 20, 2005

"This was great! I used my favorite curry blend, 1/2 the tomatoes, and a little extra lettuce. Oh, and no chile sauce, since I didn't have any. The garlic gave it a slight bite. My husband and kids..." See more, who like slightly ethnic foods, loved this over jasmine rice!"